Oh, also, something I learned when I wrote an app for android.
In order for me to use the GPS chip on the cell phone, I needed to: use Google's API, send the phone information (you know, so they could log who was looking at the GPS and where they were); this MANDATED an updated version of the play store.
So if there is some 3rd party app that "you totally trust with your location" - Google is getting that data, too.
What you wrote is highly misleading - the Location API does not need Play Services on Android to work.
You explicitly decided to choose the Google cloud driven API that's hosted in Play Services and thus requires Play Services (and not Play Store!) updates. You didn't have to.
In order for me to use the GPS chip on the cell phone, I needed to: use Google's API, send the phone information (you know, so they could log who was looking at the GPS and where they were); this MANDATED an updated version of the play store.
So if there is some 3rd party app that "you totally trust with your location" - Google is getting that data, too.